Pruitt aides reveal new details of his spending and management at EPA

[DonViejo]

Source: The Washington Post




By Juliet Eilperin, Josh Dawsey and Brady Dennis
July 2 at 6:49 PM

Two of Scott Pruitt’s top aides provided fresh details to congressional investigators in recent days about some of his most controversial spending and management decisions, including his push to find a six-figure job for his wife at a politically connected group, enlist staffers in performing personal tasks and seek high-end travel despite aides’ objections.

The Trump administration appointees described an administrator who sought a salary that topped $200,000 for his wife and accepted help from a subordinate in the job search, requested aid from senior EPA officials in a dispute with a Washington landlord and disregarded concerns about his first-class travel.

The interviews conducted by staffers for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee late last week shed new light on the EPA administrator’s willingness to leverage his position for his personal benefit and to ignore warnings even from allies about potential ethical issues, according to three individuals familiar with the sessions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the ongoing investigation.

The EPA’s former associate administrator for the Office of Policy, Samantha Dravis, spoke to Republican and Democratic aides for several hours on Thursday, followed by Pruitt’s chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, on Friday.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/pruitt-aides-reveal-new-details-of-his-spending-and-management-at-epa/2018/07/02/71b87384-7aec-11e8-80be-6d32e182a3bc_story.html

[machoneman]

1. Not really new 'news' as we have heard of these transgressions before.

But, at least it's now on the Congressional record. I do wonder if far worse testimony will soon follow.

[rickford66]

2. They need someone with no shame in this position.

Once the environment is totally destroyed, he will step down to spend more time with his family and fill the seats on the boards of directors of some selected corporations.

[AlexSFCA]

3. he is tasked with corrupting and destroying the agency

so trump must be happy. Certainly pruitt performance is not worse than trump’s (it’s impossible). Pruitt is driving the morale down, inducing the flight of best scienctists, etc. And now even in lower courts may find him in violation of CWA, SC will certainly defend the practice if not strike down CWA alltogether. Trump admin is trying to abolish most federal agencies except DHS/ICE.

[BootinUp]

4. He's doing a Heck of a job!

[Judi Lynn]

5. Whistleblower: EPA's Pruitt kept secret calendar to hide meetings

By Scott Bronstein, Curt Devine and Drew Griffin, CNN 26 mins ago

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and his aides have kept "secret" calendars and schedules to overtly hide controversial meetings or calls with industry representatives and others, according to a former EPA official who is expected to soon testify before Congress. A review of EPA documents by CNN found discrepancies between Pruitt's official calendar and other records.

EPA staffers met routinely in Pruitt's office to "scrub," alter or remove from Pruitt's official calendar numerous records because they might "look bad," according to Kevin Chmielewski, Pruitt's former deputy chief of staff for operations, who attended the meetings.

A CNN review which compared Pruitt's public calendar with internal EPA schedules and emails shows more than two dozen meetings, events or calls were omitted from his public calendar.

Chmielewski said that some interactions were intentionally removed from Pruitt's calendar after they occurred, such as meetings in June 2017 between Pruitt and Cardinal George Pell, who was charged weeks later with multiple historical charges of sexual offenses. Pell has pleaded not guilty.

More:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/whistleblower-epas-pruitt-kept-secret-calendar-to-hide-meetings/ar-AAzvlpX?li=BBnbfcL

[mahatmakanejeeves]

6. "Scott Pruitt ... asked his 25-year-old staffers to put reservations on their personal credit cards"

WeaponizedHat Retweeted:

Scott Pruitt repeatedly asked his 25-year-old staffers to put hotel reservations on their personal credit cards rather than his -- then refused to pay them back.

Breathtaking.

Link to tweet

Scott Pruitt told EPA aides that he wanted his wife to make $200,000 or more a year -- and suggested she get a job at the Republican Attorney Generals Association, which he led. He also asked EPA lawyers to help him win a dispute with his landlord.

Link to tweet